View Workout (Liam Albrittain)
(Untitled)
May 22, 2014 (Morning)
Exercise Type: Other
Comments:
I've spent a little while looking at old running logs, trying to figure out what has worked and what hasn't during track this year (relative to cross country) and have some thoughts going forward into summer training and the cross country season:
1. "The pace renaissance", as I named it: I don't know how much it helped in the long run. Running 6:50-7:10 so often was fun and built confidence in one way, but looking at my cross country season, the pace normally fell in the 7:10-7:45 range. The more I think about it, the more I think it may have detracted from workouts, sometimes made steady runs unnecessarily hard and it certainly annoyed the rest of the team. Maybe this summer it would be (and it does pain me a little bit to admit it after a significant amount cruise runs labeled "training " best to keep the steady runs, well . . . steady--or maybe (hopefully) I'll just be fit enough anyway that it won't pose any problem.
2. Strength work: During cross country I did the same type of strength I'd always done--routine, closer to the alternation between plank days and crunch/pushup days, with many added elements, but sticking to that same framework. I thought during the winter that while appropriating all sorts of new Peter Silverman drills and more difficult ab work that I was just doing different strength work, but comparing the logs I did less. I don't know how much all the hundreds of crunches, squats and extra-long planks physically helped, but mentally they worked for me. Also, when Billy Cox and the other top people started lifting weights, Zeke and I talked about it briefly and he said, "Eh, we won't have to worry about it till our junior year." Anthony said something similar. But here I am at the end of it, having not done any weights (my fault in part, too) which seemed to have really helped Gabe, Boardman and Tristan.
3. Expectations: Anthony talked to me on Thursday about my admittedly hard on myself race log, saying that by being so frustrated with not removing large chunks of time, it's slight to "the rest of us" who don't always do that. I hadn't thought of it that way. I knew intellectually that one can't have a bunch of great seasons in a row, but never absorbed that idea myself, though it applied perfectly to my spring season. Anthony added that I'm not a failure because of it and that I didn't fall short of my PR because I didn't want it badly enough. I'm wondering if it might be better for senior year to do away with the index cards on my mirror with numbers in sharpie that I become married to and just run as fast as I can.
4. Efficiency: I've never been very good at tearing myself away from practice, but this year was worse than usual. During cross country I would leave at a reasonable time, 6:20 at the latest. But during track, especially from January to March, it didn't matter that I got home at 7:00 or 7:15 when practice was technically over at 6:15. And while some of that time was spent valuably socializing, doing strength work, talking to coach or taking the Colaizzii to the metro, I almost certainly lost sleep over it, finishing my homework later and later. I made a rule for myself in April that I would go to bed at midnight no matter what, but during the fall and early winter I never would have had to make that rule.
5. Nutrition: During the second semester, I probably could have eaten better. I'm not so worried about it, because I ate, overall, pretty similar food, but still worth mentioning.